Attack on Freethought Principles.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 152, 30 June 1887, Page 2

Attack on Freethought Principles.

(To tho Editor.)

Sir,—At the public meeting held to consider the Bibfe»in-schools question, one of tlio speakers went out of hia way to abuse the principles professed by a section of his fellow-citizens; Mr Button's statement that Freethinkers had "no conscientious convictions" should not, I think, be passed by in silenco. Mr Button evidently detests heterodox opinions, but he surely might give his opponents credit for believing what thoy profess. I abhor his orthodox opinions as much as he does my heretical ones, but I should refrain from making sucli sweeping charges against those who differ from mo. Why, let me ask, was Vanini burnt at Toulouse, Algiori afc Rome, Hypatia martyred at Alexandria, and Thomas A ikon head afc Edinburgh, if it were not that they possessed "conscientious convictions "—convictions that the God of nature and of the universe was misrepresented by tho Christian creeds ? Mr Button tries to support his statement by saying that our opinions are simply negative. Is this so ? A considerable number of Freethinkers are either Deists (believers in a first cause and a Supremo Being) or Spiritualists. The remainder aro purely Agnostic or Atheistic, and these believe in the " religion of humanity," and that the only true worship n to benefit, mankind. Then again, Mr Button says that "he thought it a strange thing that these men" (Frecthinking teachers) should raise no objection to the teaching of the most foolish fablos of mythology, but were shocked on being asked to read tho Bible, the foundation of all truth." Of course they were not likely to object to Grecian mythology, because it was to bo taught as mere legond and fable, not as solemn truth and a revelation from tho Deity. Would Mr Button object to the Bible being taught under similar conditions ? As to its being "the foundation of all truth," it is evident that Mr Button has heard but little of Zoroaster, Socrates and Confucius, men who taught the highest morality long before tho supposed birth of Christ. One of Mr Button's concluding romarks is the following abusive passage referring to education without the Bible :— " They must not sond their children forth as educated beasts, having no sense of their moral duty. He did not believe that man was a man because he was an educated animal, and the man who knew his duty and did it, though he might not know how to read, was better fitted to be a citizen than the person who, though he could solve a mathematical problem, did not know that which was right from what was wrong." At all this Rationalists may afford to smile when they l'ecall that according to statistics their body furnishes a smaller ratio of criminals than most, if not all, of the Christian sects, and when they also remember that " infidel France " was the first out of all the Christian countries of Europe to abolish slavery avid slave-trade within its dominions. The world has not lost by tho lives of such "educated beasts" as Darwin, David Hume, and Condorcet, or Madame Roland, Florence Nightingale, and Harriet Martin'eau. True morality has been the great aim of Freethought philosophers, from the Emperor Julian down to Herbert Spencer. I revere the great Deistical writings as much as Mr Button does the Hebrew Scriptures, and I have quite as much right to request that selections from them should be read in the public schools (to those scholars whose parents are agreeable to it), as ho has to ask for passages from tho Bible.— J am, yours, etc., J. G. Cox.

Mount Roskill Road.—With reference to the state of Mount Roskill Road, "A Resident" writes:—"May I ask through the medium of your valuable paper the reason that Mount Roskill. Road is allowed to remain for so long in its present disgraceful condition? It is impassable alike for pedestrian's and vehicles, and very much worse than before the Road Board improvements were begun." The reason seems to be that the road in question is on the outskirts of Mount Eden district, and as it is not under the direct notice of members of the Board, it is liable to be neglected. The vehicular traffic has increased very much of late, and as there are no footpaths,pedesbrianß have df>eidedly the worst of it.